OOSFF09 is underway!
Global financial crisis permitting, there may be great prizes and entry is FREE!
All the info: OOSFF09 website here.
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Ed: What a thrill to feature this fabulous take on 1950s beefcake from the marvelous Tom Lisanti, author of Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969! To get in a warm weather mood with summer not approaching fast enough, here is a look at Hollywood surf movies from a different and albeit biased perspective. Gay men are always looking for gay subtext in movies and TV, and I am no exception. Am I reading more into these films? Probably—but it was sure a lot of fun doing the research.
The Sixties beach movie craze began with Gidget (1959) starring Sandra Dee and James Darren, a fictionalized look at teenager Kathy Kohner’s surfing escapades in Malibu during the mid-Fifties. It was groundbreaking as the movie contributed to the mass dissention of surfers on the beaches of Malibu and started a series of surf-theme films such as Gidget Goes Hawaiian and Ride the Wild Surf. The surf movie soon morphed into the beach-party film, whose heyday was from 1963 through 1965, where surfing was only used as a backdrop to fanciful teenage beach adventures. Beach Party from AIP starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello launched Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Pajama Party, Beach Blanket Bingo, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini. Soon other studios were releasing their own Beach Party rivals such as Surf Party, The Girls on the Beach, and Beach Ball. Some of these films varied from the formula by shifting the locale to a lake (A Swingin’ Summer) or the ski slopes (Ski Party, Winter a-Go-Go, Wild Wild Winter). These movies for the most part followed a successful simple formula—start with attractive swimsuit clad teenagers twisting on the sand, add a dash of surfing (or ski) footage, mix in romantic misunderstandings, stir in popular musical performers, add aging comedians for comic relief, and whisk in villainous bikers or predatory adults. Out of the surf and back in the closet: Tab Hunter was one of many male sex symbols who had to hide their sexuality during the beach movie era. Continue reading "Real or Imagined: Homoeroticism in 60s Beach Movies" TAXI ZUM KLO Available on DVD - order here
Taxi Zum Klo (Taxi to the Toilet) is a remarkable AIDS-eve film that was scandalous in its day and still runs rings around self-proclaimed “edgy” queer films that spew out of film festivals and fringe houses and bore us to death year after year. Smart and efficiently put-together, its lofty status in the history of gay-themed cinema is well-deserved (Wayne Koestenbaum called it one of the greatest gay-themed films ever, one that still blows his mind with its “happy explicitness, its cheerful liberatory politics”) and post-AIDS viewers may view it thorough an especially tortuous “what might have been” filter.
Someone who really needs their cock sucked right now is Canadian rising star Shawn Roberts, who’s appeared shirtless in an episode of Psych after a memorable cameo in National Lampoon’s Going The Distance.
In that movie some prank-loving women he met in a casino stripped him naked, tied him to a bed and stuck a double headed dildo up his arse then left him tied up, dildo-ed and with just a little straw cowboy hat for modesty when his friend found him.
Playing the jealous boyfriend in this year’s I Love You, Beth Cooper alongside Hayden Panettierre (trailer below) should be just the leg up this spunk needs to a well-deserved career as top-shelf Hollywood beefcake. All I want to know is who’s the inked-up hornball in mirror in the fourth last pic (after the jump)? The over-rated Jeff Stryker always reminds me of Elvis for some reason but Mike Henson, on the other hand, was a classic gay porn star of the highest order, appearing in such classics as Big Guns, More of a Man and with Stryker in In Hot Pursuit, which you can enjoy in the clip, above. TESTOSTERONE USA, 2002 Available on DVD - order here
Dean (David Sutcliffe), a graphic novelist, meets Pablo (Sabato Jr.) and they have a nine month affair. Pablo goes out one night for cigarettes, and never comes back. After encountering Pablo’s imperious mother (Braga) at an LA art exhibition, Dean flies to Argentina, and the rest of the film follows his rather dreary attempts to track Dean down. Along the way, we forms a friendship with waitress Sofia (Celina Font), and has an affair with Marcos (Leonardo Brzezicki) who just happens to be a childhood friend of Pablo. Testosterone is a perfectly titled film, since the fleeting mid-story appearance of Antonio Sabato Jr.’s cock was apparently all that was necessary to vacuum cash out of gay male film goers’ wallets and into the box offices of gay and lesbian film festivals the world over. Though not without other merits, this watered-down version of James Robert Baker’s novel, which was about a man left HIV-positive by his fleet-footed lover, who he then pursues to Argentina. The pesky retrovirus has been cut out of this light rom-com completely, and replaced with charismatic performances from Jennifer Coolidge and the majestic Sonia Braga but, really, not a great deal else. INTERVIEW WITH KENT JAMES (NICK NAME)
From 2000 to 2005, Utah-born ex-Mormon Kent James performed as the shirtless, mohawked gay punk rocker, Nick Name, belting out songs like “I Fucked Your Boyfriend” and “Porno di Giorno” at gay pride concerts and the gay horror film HellBent. Currently bearded, James has returned to his real name and his musical focus has shifted to folk rock, and his greatest hits album “A Decade Of Dirt” is currently in release. Kent lives in San Francisco, and he spoke very briefly with Mark Adnum via email recently.
MA: What are your current religious beliefs? KJ: In the past few years I had a couple of near-death experiences that I really believe I escaped only by the grace of God… so I’m no longer an atheist…but I believe my faith is a personal, spiritual thing and not in need of an organization’s guidance or approval. What happened to Nick Name? Look, if you won’t be told not to get into cars with strange men, then you’ve got no one to blame but yourself. STONEWALL USA, 1995 Available on DVD - order here
Nigel Finch was shaping up to be an important director of gay-themed films before he died of AIDS while editing this, his first feature. Previously a director with the BBC, he helmed the outstanding The Lost Language of Cranes in 1992 and Stonewall, though it isn’t perfect, is a heartfelt and affecting film. La Miranda (Guillermo Díaz) hangs out at the Stonewall Inn, a bar in New York full of boozy drag queen hookers that is regularly raided by cops. Bolshy country boy Matty Dean (Frederick Weller) arrives in New York to change the world, and becomes La Miranda’s friend and casual lover after he stands with her one night against the police. Bostonia (Duane Boutte) is the den mother involved with a mafia man Vinnie (Bruce MacVittie) who wants her to have a sex change so they can take their relationship public. As tensions grow, Judy Garland enters the last days of her life, and the Stonewall riots, often marked as the beginning of the modern gay movement, approach.
Nice dick! Josh Duhamel continues to impress with his laidback sexiness though it was painful to watch him suffer through the Transformers sequel, which was woeful. More pics and a lovely clip after the jump. I LOVE YOU MAN USA, 2009
Nowhere near as annoying as it might have been, this light-bromance does some really interesting thing with its ample gay content, too. Out-of-control product placement (at least half a dozen times an iPhone is held up to the camera as MacBooks glimmer in the background and various characters praise Apple gadgetry, for example) takes advantage of the film’s moneyed target demographic (double income, thirtysomething heterosexual couples), and its well-illustrated essay about male isolation and the frat-falls of getting “involved” with your best mate, conversation points is sure to stud many (mixed-sex) post-theatre coffees, dinner dates, and drives home. Paul Rudd plays Peter Klaven, an earnest and gluggy real estate agent who specialises in selling older apartment blocks. His gentlemanly devotion to all the women he meets comes naturally, including that to his new fiance Zooey (Rashida Jones), but it comes at the cost of male friendships - he has none. Even Peter’s father Oswald (J.K. Simmons) and gay younger brother Robbie (Andy Samberg) have vastly superior social skills and enjoy solid male friendships with each other. When Zooey has no trouble racking up her bridal party of half a dozen BFFs, Peter embarks on the quest to meet his elusive Mr Right, someone who can be his best friend, and his best man. He meets Sydney Fife (Jason Segel), a louche Venice Beach “investor” at an open house inspection, which Sydney regularly attends for the free food, and they strike up a fast friendship based around a series of man-dates and a love of playing air guitar, etc.
Sweaty marine riding a horse naked, check.
I wonder?
I am drooling over the prospect of seeing this new documentary about unsung AIDS activist Richard Berkowitz and his involvement with AIDS deities Michael Callen and Joseph Sonnabend but there’s no Australian release date yet set. The lucky Kenneth M. Walsh went to see it, though, with his friend Michael at a NYC cinema, and this is what he thought:
Australian actor Alex Dimitriades starred as horny Nick, the student who seduces his schoolteacher in The Heartbreak Kid and in its spin-off teen TV hit Heartbreak High, before grabbing an AFI nomination for Best Actor as angry/confused Greek/Australian gay/not-happy-about-it Ari in the over-rated Head On. Now segued from pumped up post-pubescent into slightly-grizzled thirtysomething actor, Alex makes his mark in support appearances in big budget Aussie TV series like Underbelly. Plenty more shirtless and some screencaps from his nude masturbation scene in Head On, after the jump.
Long before Heath and Jake went on their camping trip … CLOSE TO LEO (TOUT CONTRE LEO) France, 2003 Available on DVD - order here
HIV-positive and homosexual 21-year old Leo (Pierre Mignard) is the eldest of four sons in a close knit family and Marcel (Yannis Lespert), 11, is the youngest. Leo initially refuses to take anti-retroviral medication, but eventually travels to Paris for treatment. After catching the tail ends of one-too-many whispered conversations and with his older brother having endless tests in hospital, Marcel starts to clue on. On the cusp of puberty, Marcel incinerates what’s left of his boyhood innocence by pursuing Leo for the truth. Tout contre Léo (Close to Leo) is a beautifully shot film but its gently-does-it pace and elliptical structure occasionally slips into inertia and left me, at times, wondering exactly what was going on. Also, extremely supportive families such as that enjoyed by Leo may exist, but when everyone is on the same side and no one has any fights to pick, dramatic tension is elusive, and the film drifts in and out of a heartwarming though picturesque coma. I think we enter the story a little too late: we’re never given any backstory as to how long Leo’s been HIV-positive, how the diagnosis went down when he announced it, though presumably it was at the dinner table over red wine and cigarettes one night after Marcel had gone to bed. Belaboured HIV-declaration scenes with tearful mothers and fathers and brothers full of concealed devastation are never that interesting to watch, but we just seem to arrive at a story that feels half-told. It’s an efficiency in one sense, as the film is about Marcel’s coming-of-age and Leo’s departure from the family (and the Earth) but what results is a Xanax family, that react to what must be an extremely disruptive and traumatic situation with a puzzlingly casual air. There should have been at least one character who bristled a little or refused to tow the party line. However, merits are plentiful and the film can be enjoyed as a disjointed series of fascinating vignettes. A keen barebacker, Leo is insulted and turned off when his swarthy hospice receptionist insists on fucking him with a condom on. The receptionist scrambles to offer a drink, or change tack, but Leo is zipping up his pants and heading back to his room. The psyches and experiences of sero-discordant gay guys are canyon-separated and I don’t think any of us have ever really worked out how to get that condom on, or keep it off, without a whole train of subconscious associations running through our heads. TYING THE KNOT USA, 2004 Available on DVD - order here
Tampa police officer Mickie Mashburn lost her partner of 14 years, Lois, when Lois - also a cop - was shot and killed attending an armed robbery. After Lois’ death, a protracted acrimonious legal battle drags on between Mackie and Lois’ family, who claim rights to all of Lois’ estate as her next-of-kin. In Oklahoma, rancher Sam Beaumont shared much of his life with his great love, Earl, who left the farmhouse they shared to Sam in his will. After Earl’s death, however, a band of his cousins exploited a technicality in Earl’s will, and the Oklahoma court handed Earl’s estate to them, evicting Sam who moved to a rundown shack where he survives by selling rabbits. This horribly-shafted pair of salt-of-the-earthers are the heart of Tying the Knot, a documentary about the debate in the United States over gay marriage which is peopled by a range of academics, activists, commentators and politicians who talk about the many angles of the debate. The heart-breaking stories of Mickie and Sam readily manipulates viewer sympathy for the plight of widowed homosexuals who have to suffer the double blow of losing their partner followed by humiliating defeats in court at the hands of malicious, despicable relatives motivated by money and property which legally they can claim but which morally they have no claim over. Tying the Knot offers an enormous amount of interesting information about the history of marriage and many of the speakers provide astute obersavtions. But it is all-too-clear that the objective of the documentary is to convince viewers of the moral and ethical necessity of gay marriage being made legal in the United States. I feel that a documentary is stronger when it allows all sides to speak their piece and explores its topic objectively. The heart-on-its-sleeve makes for several serious missteps. I don’t think this week’s announced expansion of the Best Picture field from five nominees to ten is a very exciting idea. It just opens the door for five “runners up” films that will be given away by their lack of nominations in the other prestige categories and gives the Oscars a very inappropriate “Miss Universe” feel. Every year films or people with much merit miss out on Oscar recognition but this is part of what gives the Oscars their marvelously ruthless inscrutability. Nevertheless, that’s what’s going ahead so why not get into the spirit early and look back on ten gay-themed Best Picture nominees from over the decades (Midnight Cowboy was the only actual Best Picture winner). 1969 Midnight Cowboy 1972 Cabaret 1972 Deliverance 1975 Dog Day Afternoon 1983 The Dresser COME UNDONE (PRESQUE RIEN) France, 2000 Available on DVD - order here
While recovering from a suicide attempt, Mathieu (Jérémie Elkaïm) recounts his summer affair with Cédric (Stéphane Rideau), a fling which contained moments of happiness and love, but which was ultimately thwarted by pre-adult crises of identity & confidence. Though poor Mathieu has to endure invasive physical examinations at a psychiatric hospital and interrogations from a smart but intimidating therapist, it’s the peripheral cast who seem to be heavily medicated, with girlfriends watching the boys frolic from afar and reacting only with the occasional fingering of their blouse, and a set of mothers and aunties who drink heaps and mumble incoherently.
This morning I read that Jeff Goldblum had died in a fall from a cliff in New Zealand, and then, that Harrison Ford was missing believed dead after a luxury yacht he was a passenger on had sank off St Tropez with no apparent survivors. Of course, both stories turned out to be hoaxes and apparently the Goldblum one has been doing the rounds since the 1990s, but in the frenzy of news flashes, blogging and tweeting - Twitter briefly melted down and displayed a back soon page - over Michael Jackson’s sudden death right on top of Farrah Fawcett’s death from cancer earlier the same day, it all somehow seemed plausible to me. I’ve always been excitable and also have great interest in patterns, conjunctions and coincidences so I didn’t question such a multiplicity of star deaths and ran with it as fact. Harrison Ford is - for all my knowledge - still alive but unfortunately, looking far from his Indian Jones best (as pictured above).
Thomas Dumerchez has starred twice for Gaël Morel, the director who played the sexually-developing lead character of Les Roseaux Sauvages (Wild Reeds) which in turn was directed by André Téchiné, who wrote-directed Les Témoins (The Witnesses) in 2007.
He appeared in Morel’s 2004 erotic brother trio film Le Clan (3 Dancing Slaves) and then again in 2007, as the best friend of Catherine Deneuve’s dead son, who she romantically pursues and attends a rock concert with, etc. A couple more pics and clips, after the jump. SHORTBUS USA, 2006 Available on DVD - order here
Depressed ex-hustler James (Paul Dawson) has two muted joys in his life: making arty mini-DV movies, and soaking up the affections of his devoted boyfriend Jamie (PJ DeBoy). When the couple can’t decide whether or not to sexually open their relationship, they seek the advice of couples counselor Sofia (Sook Yin-Lee), who’s so dedicated to sorting out the love lives of others that she’s overlooked her own and has never experienced orgasm despite the sweaty efforts of her horny husband Rob (Raphael Barker). To help her loosen up, Jamie and James invite Sofia to an underground club called Shortbus, where young New Yorkers, many of them new-New Yorkers, chew the fat in chill out rooms and have group sex in the main room. Shortbus is a new film from John Cameron Mitchell, the creator of Hedwig and the Angry Inch but unlike that wonderful film, Shortbus was a real disappointment for me. Greek Pete is a fictional take on the world of London-based gay escorts. Pete, of the title, aims to be the best in his field and the film has recently played to sold-out houses at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre. Director Andrew Haigh says: THE TRIP USA 2002 Available on DVD - order here
After enduring the banality of Big Eden and the ineptitude of Circuit at past years’ Phoenix Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, I wasn’t expecting too much from the highlighted festival finale. But I was entertained by Miles Swain’s debut feature, The Trip, a surprisingly intelligent romantic comedy combining elements of The Graduate, Forrest Gump, Thelma and Louise, and Longtime Companion. Swain refuses to wallow in pedantic preaching, instead drawing memorable and likeable characters into the period piece. Inspired by a 1984 urban legend about two gay friends that meet up in Mexico to travel, but are refused for a flight when an airline worker believes one of them has AIDS, Swain adapts the concept with the premise that this is a reconciliation rendezvous with a first love while layering political content into the mix. That it works so well is a tribute to the screenwriting which weaves broader issues and humor, some fine ensemble acting, and high production values that include a lively original score and period music (Van Halen, Bruce Springsteen, and other rockers).
Michael Brawn, lover of cock, takes you through the basics in this stunning instructional video: CONNIE AND CARLA USA, 2004 Stars: Nia Vardalos, Toni Collette, David Duchovny Available on DVD - order here
Hard-featured Nia Vardalos and goofy, goggle-eyed Toni Collette are fine comediennes and able actresses, but look a bit too much like real drag queens for their own good. In Connie and Carla, where they play women who pretend to be drag queens, you have to remind yourself at times that the pair are also actually female. Connie (Vardalos) and Carla (Collette) are musical theatre buffs who perform a strange act to mostly empty houses at an airport lounge. Their manager is mixed up in the drug trade, and when Connie and Carla find a kilo of cocaine stashed in their bags and a gang of killer hoods on their tail, they escape to West Hollywood, and pose as drag queens to both find employment and stay undercover. Trouble is, they keep their original names, and, as mentioned, don’t look much different in exaggerated drag make up. Also, both are so ambitious and have such glary stars in their eyes, they jump at the chance to grab some kind of fame. Their show becomes a huge hit, and they quickly make good friends out of a group of lonely, mediocre drag entertainers. Jeff, the brother of one of these drag queens turns up in the form of David Duchovny, who Connie immediately falls in love with. But he thinks she’s a man in a dress, and is horrified by her advances. Jeff’s brother, Peaches (Stephen Spinella) is determined to be accepted by his family on his own terms, make-up and wig included.
Yes, that’s Little Britain’s Matt Lucas as Tweedledum and Tweedledee in these knockout pics of Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland - due out later this year - that Disney released today. After the jump: Anne Hathaway as The White Queen and a bigger look at Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter (that’s Helena Bonham Carter, natch, as The Red Queen). Manly love, from yet another Matt Sterling classic.
Matt Sterling was easily the greatest of all gay porn directors - his films include Inch by Inch, The Bigger the Better, A Matter of Size and the greatest gay porn of all, Spokes (credited as Bill Clayton) - and his B-catalogue starts with Stryker Force, All American and Like A Horse. His life story, if you can find details about it online which I never really can, sounds fascinating: he battled the spasms of motor neurone disease before dying in 2006. I’m really interested in finding out more about the guy whose love of beefy blue collar guys, athletes and muscle icons (and armpits, sweat and foot-wide thighs that are lightly dusted with caramel blond hair and tangy with desire) exactly matched mine - and the psyche-twist of his own physical limitations matched with his unmatched eye for celebrating the body-perfect male. After the jump: cover art from a selection of his titles, including my favourite, the wonderfully-titled Mark. And, a couple of retro-fabulous clips. Continue reading "One Sheet: The Gay Porn Classics of Matt Sterling" BUTCH CAMP USA, 1997 Available on DVD - order here
In Butch Camp, twinky twenty-something Matt (Paul Denniston) signs up for a training course that’ll make him tougher and help him find a boyfriend. When Matt gets to Butch Camp, he meets drag queeny female commandant (Judy Tenuta). She’s a ball breaker, carries a whip, speaks in a “German” accent, and generally acts like a bitch, every moment that she’s on screen. She doesn’t do anything else, she just keeps doing the previously mentioned things, over and over again. She’s also named Sam Rottweiller, just in case you needed extra hints on what an aggressive animal she is. It’s a lame joke to begin with; an hour into the movie it’s torture. As part of Matt’s butch training, he goes to a straight bar, where he has to feign interest in a basketball game, and some female patrons’ tits. Why exactly the guts of this made-for-gays story is bent towards Matt learning how to be like a straight guy, rather than learning to be a gay guy who’s a little tougher and less gullible, is anyone’s guess. An early drag show scene, full of hotpanted sailors and rainbow flags, is totally for the birds. But it’s not at all out of whack with the dumb-as-possible tone of the rest of the film, so let’s move on with the story, which features babelicious Janet Cockswell, who’s attracted to Matt, just like her rough and tumble boyfriend, stacked and handsome Rod Cazzone. Of course, Rod is soon smitten with Matt, who in turn just needs a few more sessions at Butch Camp, and a showdown with the local gay basher, to be really ready for love. Actually, let’s just stop there. |
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